Have a Magical Day!

I have a little girl. My little girl loves princesses. One day her big brother tried to tell her that princesses are just pretend. No, no, no big brother, I said. There are REAL princesses! And that is how I got my kids interested in watching the Royal Wedding, LOL! But more on that in a minute, first I have to show you a little fairy princess card I made:


I created the little castle by cutting strips of patterned paper and simply gluing them to a scrap of white cardstock in a castle-y shape. The little fairy princess is from the Hero Arts Magical Castle set, isn't she sweet?

I decorated the castle with some little punched out squares, and used my MFT Banner Day die to make the tower tops. Of course I had to bling those up a bit, too!


Once I had all the pieces in place on the white cardstock, I cut around the whole thing. Then I traced it onto another bit of cardstock, cut out and scored the top before gluing it on as a card back.


Just a fun little card on this magical princess day. :-) And speaking of that... yup, we surely watched the wedding this morning! My kids woke up just before The Kiss(es). They plopped down together and waited for the prince and princess (I prefer to call them that, Duke & Duchess just isn't as much fun!) came out on the balcony. Note the Cinderella dress on my little princess. Yup, she slept in it!


After The Kiss, we sat down for some scones and then colored this fun little princess kiss coloring page. :-)


I can't help it, I'm totally smitten with this happy couple. They are just magical!


Have a nice weekend!

The Play Date Cafe Challenge #79

I'm so excited about this week's Play Date Cafe Challenge - my favorite company, Hero Arts, is our sponsor!! YAY!! So of course I used some Hero goodness on my card:


I thought the pattern on Big Cup sort of resembled the design on our inspiration piece:


The entire cup is coated with Glossy Accents for added shine & dimension IRL. Love that stuff!

We also have a wonderful guest designer this week - the sweet and fabulous Kelly Rasmussen from the Hero Arts design team! YAY! I love everything she creates, so I can't wait to see how she used this week's colors!

I also can't wait to see what my fellow PDCC teammates came up with using their Hero Arts stamps!

Julie Ranae * Sarah Anderson * Savannah O'Gwynn * Ruby 2 Shoes * Andrew Ewen * Fiona Shultz * Jaclyn Miller * Jinny Newlin * Michele Gross * Tracey Kuzniak * Colleen Dietrich

There's a great prize up for grabs for this week's winner - a $25 Hero Arts shopping spree! Fun!


I cannot wait to see what YOU will create! Check out the challenge at the Play Date Cafe site!

I made this card during a fun afternoon of stamping with friends at Archivers! Lucky me, I got to hang out with Lydia, Dana and Kim. Loved every minute of it!

Me and my Lydia:


My fabulous new friend Kim and sweet, hilarious Dana:


Me sewing away on today's card! (YES, I brought my sewing machine to Archivers! Of course!)


Lydia working her magic!


Thanks Dana for sharing your photos! And thanks friends for a fun stampy day!

Happy Stamping!

Catered Crop Follow the Recipe #10!

Hi everyone! Today I'm sharing a card that highlights one of my very favorite things about spring - purple martins coming home to their house in my backyard! They come back year after year, and I just love them!


I love this Tall Birdhouse stamp from Hero Arts, too! And the buttons - I had been wanting the new Maya Road alterable wood buttons and finally scored some at Archiver's, yay! I colored the wood with my Copics, love how it looks.


I've been a rotten cardmaker & blogger lately, too much going on at home! I made this card for this week's Follow the Recipe challenge but failed to blog it before Linda's Top Chef Quickfire post yesterday! Oops!! Make sure and check out the post - my teammates created some GORGEOUS cards!!
And it's not too late at all for YOU to play along! All you have to do is check out the inspiration card and follow one or more elements from her recipe! Easy peasy! This week Bugaboo Stamps is the sponsor, and they are offering up seven free digital images!

As for me, here's how I was inspired:

• Pattern Paper – stripes, miniprints
• Colors – pastels
• Color Mediums – Copic markers
• Embellishments – twine, buttons
• Theme – Spring

I hope to see you playing along with us this week!

Project 365-ish: Week 16

Happy Easter if you celebrate Easter! We've had another fun week, with a few things going on - but I'm going to focus on our weekend with this post. We decided to take a little weekend trip to the Gulf - to say goodbye before we leave Texas. We spent the weekend in Corpus Christi, enjoying the ocean, the sea birds, the fish & chips...

We made the ~3.5hr drive over to Corpus after the kids got out of preschool on Friday. We didn't have time to do a whole lot once we got there that night, but we did go out for dinner - even at the restaurant, Courtney was ready to swim!


Next door to the restaurant we spied a comic book store - right away Carter noticed the neon signs and wondered what it was!


Carter couldn't believe there was so much superhero stuff all in one place!


After dinner we settled into the hotel, where the kids shared the sofa bed. They goofed around for quite a while, but in the end they settled down & slept - yay!


We began Saturday with a view of the USS Lexington, which is now a museum. We didn't visit but Carter thought it was pretty cool!


We did visit the aquarium, though!


At the aquarium, the kids enjoyed a dolphin show...


Touching stingrays...


And getting up close & personal with a sea turtle!


The aquarium was fun, but even better was the beach!!


Thankfully we avoided sharks. Mostly...


And before leaving, we hit the beach again in the early morning hours, this time combing the beach for shells...


Hurray for a fun weekend by the sea!

The Play Date Cafe Challenge #78

This week's Play Date Cafe colors are really fun - so I had to make a fun little card to go with them.


I was stamping with my friend Lydia when I made this card - she suggested I paper-piece the cloud paper into the car windows. Because she's a genius. Love it! I also added a little gloss to the tires.


Aren't these colors fun & fabby??


I wonder what my awesome PDCC friends made this week! Let's go find out, shall we?

Julie Ranae * Sarah Anderson * Savannah O'Gwynn * Ruby 2 Shoes * Andrew Ewen * Fiona Shultz * Jaclyn Miller * Jinny Newlin * Michele Gross * Tracey Kuzniak * Colleen Dietrich

We also have a wonderful guest this week, Hannah Craner! Oh my word do I love her blog Sherbet Blossom, it's so beautiful.

The sponsor this time around is Market Street Stamps. They are offering a free stamp set to this week's winner. Nice!


I hope you get a chance to play this week, can't wait to see what you make!

• Stamps: CL478 Going, CL272 All Occasion Messages from Hero Arts
• Paper: Bazzill cardstock, cloud DP (Craft n Craftin'), polka dot DP (Bazzill? BoBunny?)
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
• Other: Ric-rac, Glossy Accents (Ranger)

i pine for you.

Here's a simple little card.


I pine for you. Heee! I just love that. As soon as I saw that greeting, along with the pine tree, in the Critters in the Forest set from Lawn Fawn, I had to have it. Nevermind that the critters themselves are ADORABLE too. It was this greeting that put me over the edge. So cute!

Tomorrow is Play Date Cafe day, see you then!

Project 365-ish: Weeks 14 & 15

Today's family update post is lonnnnggggg. I didn't get a chance to do one last week, so this one includes two weeks of photos. I apologize to those of you on dial-up. ;-) Here we go...

First and foremost - our house is FINALLY officially for sale!


Now that we are DONE getting ready, there is more time for fun things! Plus, I am trying to keep the kids out of the house as much as possible, to reduce the amount of cleaning required for each showing. :-)

A favorite place to spend our time is the community pool. It's nice that we can go to the pool in April - but it's still a bit chilly when we get out!


This isn't Courtney heading to the pool - this is Courtney heading home from Target! We decided we needed some goggles, arm floaties and kickboards, and Courtney was so excited she had to put them on in the car!


We've spent time at the library, where we had a bit of a milestone - Carter is now checking out chapter books, and we're reading one or two chapters each night. My baby is growing up!


(And yes, he's totally stylin' in his orange socks and soccer sandals!) :-)

Carter and I like to watch Dancing with the Stars together. Can't you tell he loves it from his enthusiastic face?


One issue with letting your five year old watch DWTS with you - "Mommy what does sexy mean?"

Courtney is such a big helper at the grocery store! She wanted to push the big cart, even though she could barely reach it.


Carter and I got to have a morning together, just the two of us! We went to the garden center and bought a couple veggies to plant...


Looked at some books at Barnes & Noble...


And had lunch at Kerbey Lane, where Carter ate nearly ALL of these pancakes!! Wow.


Visiting Petsmart can be dangerous... we came close to adopting this sweet kitty! Wonder what Daddy would have thought of that...


We had a fun time last week visiting a new-to-us bouncy place!


One relatively mess-free thing to do at home is coloring - here they were making cards! Sigh. My babies, making mama proud!


One afternoon I found Courtney reading books in her room. Sitting in the bin that normally holds her dress-up clothes. Silly girl!


And finally - more warming up after a dip in the pool. :-)


Until next time,